


i am a thousand winds that blow, the diamond glint on snow

by whalersandsailors



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Ambiguous and SAD ending im sorry, Angst, Background Character Death, Canon Compliant, Character Study, During Canon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 19:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20533157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/pseuds/whalersandsailors
Summary: Death is a constant in Thomas Jopson's life. He remembers the names and faces of those gone before him, regardless if the same shall be done for him.





	i am a thousand winds that blow, the diamond glint on snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vegetas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegetas/gifts).

> written for prompt: **ya’aburnee // يقبرني** \- _“you bury me”; wishing for a loved one to outlive you because of how unbearable life would be without them_. Title from Mary Elizabeth Frye's [poem](https://www.funeralguide.co.uk/help-resources/arranging-a-funeral/planning-the-service/funeral-poems/do-not-stand-at-my-grave-and-weep).
> 
> Recommended soundtrack: [William Basinski's Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive](https://youtu.be/1dD0VUBQ8EI)

He hears the gulls when he sleeps.

If he keeps his eyes closed, he can pretend he is elsewhere — that his breathing is not labored, that every bone in his body does not ache, and that his teeth do not bleed.

He can pretend that the sun on his face is a pleasure, and not the perpetual torment of an unending Arctic day. He can pretend that he is at the docks near Greenhithe, watching the ships coming and going from port, watching the spry sailors climbing over the rigs as nimble as monkeys.

He found a dead gull, once, floating in the brine and foam and filth near the steps. He was a boy, ever so small, bright-eyed and curious. His hand was inches from the rotting, dead-eyed bird when his mother gasped and yanked him away. Disgust coated her voice as she reprimanded him, pulling him away from the water’s edge.

He had cried, worried that the bird was only sleeping, not dead.

Would it not drown if Thomas did not wake it?

Who would miss the bird should it die?

** **

** **

** **

It was raining the day they buried his mother.

Thomas had worn his best coat and shined his shoes for the illustrious occasion of dumping his mother’s bloated, drowned corpse into a hole, unrecognized and unsanctified by the church. The rain was a cruel reminder of the damage done to her body when authorities dragged her from the river. Had it not been for a woman who recognized the dusty rose shawl of Bill Jopson’s wife, she would have been lost to the annals of London’s miserable and forgotten poor.

Thomas did not cry, but the rain plastered his hair to his skull, dribbling down his face in a mocking imitation of tears. His father and brother stood nearby, equally silent and dry-eyed.

He knew that they partly blamed him for her actions, for his weaning her from her medicine, and for the lack of a true scapegoat to shoulder the responsibility of everything gone wrong in Sarah’s brief, tragic life.

Each clump of mud dropped onto her coffin resounded with an overly loud thud — as though they were stoning the dead woman for the utter selfishness of her actions, the abandonment of her family. Part of Thomas lay beside her in the damp earth, as he knew his exit from London was a short month away. The letter from Crozier was stuffed in the folds of a book, hidden in the depths of his bureau drawer.

Sarah Jopson’s grave remained unmarked and unnamed. As far as Thomas’s family was concerned, they buried two Jopsons that day, and the lack of marker cemented that fact.

Thomas has never seen the captain weep, not before the morning when he is the first to enter the tent where Crozier sits beside Fitzjames’s long-cold body. There is no reproach on Thomas’s face or on his tongue when he sees the naked grief twisting his captain’s face. Thomas holds Crozier tight to his chest, one of the captain’s hands still entwined with the dead man’s, while the wet of Crozier’s tears soaks through his jacket.

There is little to gather for Fitzjames, but they clean his body as best they can, wiping away blood and sweat, and combing his hair. They dress him in his uniform, granting him dignity in death that Thomas can only hope will be afforded to him as well.

Bridgens and Blanky stand outside the tent, by the pallet which they will use to drag Fitzjames’s body to his place of burial. As Thomas helps Crozier carry Fitzjames’s body, he feels his scalp itch with filth and his teeth ooze blood with every labored step. Thomas and Bridgens wrap canvas around Fitzjames's body, and Thomas can see in his periphery Blanky hobbling to Crozier’s side. He keeps his head low, allowing the old friends to speak privately.

Looking down at Fitzjames’s pallid face, Thomas wonders who else will die, and if they will have the chance to bury them, if there will be enough sail left to craft more canvas coffins.

They buried a leg.

All that remained was the floundering fear of over one hundred men, each mourning the loss of their captain, the last beacon of their hope.

The funeral itself felt ridiculous, with the ceremony attributed to it. Thomas cast his eyes toward the sky, willing his cynicism to not affect him so strongly. Too much time spent around Crozier, he supposed.

The words spoken by his captain were eloquent, grandiose, as rose-tinted as the man whose body disappeared under the ice, into the massive abyss a short distance beneath their feet — as though the ocean were a great nether-realm, the pack ice an impassable River Styx, and the bear its guardian boatman.

What did Sir John pay for his passage?

Thomas dropped his gaze, long enough to look at Gibson and Armitage beside him, then to the backs of the lieutenants in front of him. Little stood stiffly, his back rigid under his coat. His posture was imposing, fitting for the officer directly beneath the captain. Thomas could see the steep slant of his nose and the jut of his brow, but his collar hid the remainder of his face.

A shiver slid down his spine, forcing Thomas back to attention. He wished he were wearing more layers than his great coat and longed to return to the safety and warmth of the ship.

The unearthly silence of the Arctic swallows all noise as they pile the rocks around Commander Fitzjames’s body. The air of the wasteland is nearly tangible, how it engulfs every sound made by the men, their boots sliding on the gravel or an errant sniffle as they withhold their tears.

Thomas’s knees ache and tremble, but he works hardest of them all. They try to make the commander’s mausoleum as seamless with the landscape as they can — for the sanctity of his body and for their own peace of mind.

Little walks from their camp to assist with the final few stones. Crozier keeps his distance. When one of Thomas’s legs buckle, Little rushes to his side to help him stand.

Thomas grunts and shoves his hands off. Little recoils as if burned. They stand at an impasse, the men around them continuing to drag and deposit rocks on Fitzjames’ grave.

Only Peglar pauses to look at them curiously, but Thomas refuses to meet the eyes of any other man and risk seeing the accusations there. He runs a shaking hand through his hair as he swallows and stumbles back to the camp.

His head hurts. His throat is tight. Walking has become such habit that he nearly passes the camp altogether before he remembers his destination and clumsily enters the first tent he sees to collapse onto his hands and knees on the canvas floor.

** **

Thomas was dressed down to his waistcoat and jumper, the sleeves rolled up as he washed the face and neck of the young, dead stoker. Torrington died of what Dr. Peddie determined was consumption; caught back in England and exacerbated by the constant inhalation of coal smoke. When the lad had started to cough blood, there had been hushed murmurings among the crew that Torrington was contagious or, worse yet, an omen.

The doctors and Captain Crozier alike did not tolerate the superstitious worries, but much to the officers’ dismay and Thomas’s deep well of sympathy, many of Torrington’s friends grew distant during the twilight of his life.

After wringing the cloth over the basin, Thomas set it aside before taking tying the clean kerchief around Torrington’s head to keep his slack jaw in place.

“This is hardly your responsibility, Mr. Jopson,” he heard someone say at the entrance to the sick bay.

He looked up to see Lieutenant Little, sporting that oddly serious smile that Thomas had grown terribly fond of in the weeks prior.

“Dr. Peddie is indisposed,” Thomas explained, knotting the kerchief twice. “And Dr. MacDonald is busy with other patients. Mr. Helpman is seeing to John’s belongings.”

“That is beside the point. You’re the captain’s steward.”

“I had a moment to spare, sir.” Thomas’s lips quirked, his eyes sad. “Every man deserves a little kindness in death. Wouldn’t you say so, sir?”

Little was taken aback by the candor of Thomas’s words. He stepped fully into the sick bay, opposite Thomas, with Torrington’s stiff body lying on the table between them.

“I would say, you give kindness even where it may not be deserved.”

Thomas’s face blotched, and he averted his eyes, biting his tongue at the argument rising from the back of his throat.

A hand covered his, and his eyes flew up again. Little had reached over the body, his warm calloused palm enclosing Thomas’s long fingers.

“I mean no insult, Mr. Jopson,” Little said, his voice lowering to a deep, intimate rumble; “It is an admirable quality, your kindness.”

Unable to help himself, unable to stop the warmth filling his chest, blossoming from somewhere in his belly and spreading through every fiber of his limbs, Thomas curled his fingers around Little’s hand and squeezed back. Maintaining eye contact, Little slid his hand higher so that his thumb brushed against the dusting of hair on the back of Thomas’s wrist.

“Thank you, sir,” Thomas said, his voice catching.

Little released his hand. Nerves lit up along his arm as Thomas smothered the impulse to close the distance again, desiring nothing more than the sensation of Little’s warm, rough hand against his face and mouth.

“Now,” said Little, stepping back to assess Torrington’s body. “What can I do to help?”

Little avoids Thomas after the meeting, and Thomas — his hands shaking from either fury or illness — thinks it is for the best. Were Little foolish enough to defend himself further, to try to make Thomas see why leaving the sick was their only alternative, Thomas would have struck the man.

The distance between them does not last, and that evening, after Thomas spends nearly an hour pacing the camp, muttering to himself half-formed arguments and memories distorted by time, Little hooks a hand around his elbow and guides him into one of the tents.

“What do you want?” Thomas snarls at him, having sense enough to keep his voice a low growl.

Little’s eyes are on the ground, his chin dipped into his chest. “I wanted to apologize for earlier—”

“_Don’t_.” Thomas bears his teeth at him, his lips cracked and painful. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

Little grabs his arm to keep him from leaving.

“Tommy, please—”

“Don’t call me that,” Thomas snaps, his voice starting to rise.

Little’s hand digs into his arm, and Thomas knows that it will leave a bruise. The dark contusions litter his body like paint that he cannot scrub away.

“It was a coward’s plan, Thomas,” Little continues, his voice quavering, thick with tears; “we shan’t go through with it, and I am sorry for suggesting it.”

The pressure on his arms is forgotten as Thomas stares at the brass buttons of Little’s coat, how they dully reflect the light from outside.

“Who will have my things when I die?” he whispers.

Little pauses, one hand going slack. “Thomas?”

“Would I have been buried, if you left?”

“You’re not going to die here, Thomas.”

“Of course I will.” Thomas smiles, his lips smarting from the stretch and the wrinkles by his eyes deepened by the dust that has crawled into his skin. “I wouldn’t have gone with you. You know that.”

He shrugs Little’s hands off his shoulders so that he can smear his thumb against the line of his gum. He holds it up, the tip of his nail vibrant and coppery, drenched in red.

Little says nothing as he takes Thomas’s hand and stares at the blood. He parts his lips and wets them, his brow furrowing, but he cannot seem to find the words.

“I’ll die before you,” Thomas supplies him with the obvious, the ache in his chest dull for having accepted the inevitable weeks ago. “Small mercies, I suppose.”

Little shakes his head. “Thomas, I will do everything in my power to gets us home. We will both live.”

The promise rings hollow, but Thomas tries to remember the love that such words would have filled him with prior.

“I’ve buried too many,” he whispers, swaying on his feet.

Little catches him before he can fall, and he helps him sit on one of the crates. Thomas hides his face in the collar of Edward’s coat, hissing at the dull pain caused by Edward stroking his hair.

“Ned, all I want,” he says, the wool of the coat dampening his voice, “is for you to let me die first. I can’t bury another friend.”

Thomas hears no response, and he stares at his hands — his hollow, empty, trembling hands — when Little presses a brief kiss to his forehead and leaves him.

** **

“I shan’t let you go alone.”

Thomas jerked at the voice, glancing up to see the exhausted lieutenant leaning against the doorframe. He moved to the side to allow Little to join him in the slop room and continued lacing up his breeches while Little retrieved a set for himself.

“It will only take a moment,” Thomas reasoned with him, “and there is the watch.”

Little managed an ironic smile, with far more humor than Thomas would have thought him capable after the events that transpired that day.

“I’ll not have the captain’s steward slaughtered by that thing, if it’s still stalking about. Crozier would have my head.”

The joke landed poorly, but Thomas managed a weak chuckle. He finished adjusting the upper half of his slops as Little hastily threw on his own. His attempt at congenial normality was sweet, Thomas recognized, as weariness from earlier racked both of their bodies. Thomas could see some of Mr. Blanky’s blood under Little’s fingernails, and the crack of Dr. MacDonald’s bonesaw would echo in Thomas’s mind for weeks to come.

The lieutenant’s fatigue seemed to catch up with him, so their conversation dwindled as he shadowed Thomas’s steps up the ladder, onto deck, and onto the snow where the creature’s blood marred the white in a crimson blot.

Thomas tipped the crystal decanter first, dumping the whiskey onto the ground where the liquid mixed around the blood. It seeped into the fresh layer of snow, melting tiny craters along the blood. Once empty, he handed the decanter to Little and took out the final whiskey bottle, upending it and watching as the last of his captain’s vice disappeared underneath his feet.

“It’s like a ritual, almost,” he heard himself say, over the whistling wind.

“A libation to the Arctic,” Little replied.

“To the creature and its swift demise,” Thomas quipped, his smile hidden by the scarf around his lower face.

“And that we live to see it done.”

“And we live to see home,” Thomas said, turning to face the lieutenant.

Little inclined his head, lifting the empty decanter.

“I’d drink to that.”

** **

** **

** **

The canvas flaps as someone enters the tent. Thomas feels the noise more than he hears it. His eyes squint open as a shadowed outline leans over him and brushes the hair from his face with a gentleness as infinitesimal as a mother’s love.

“Captain?”

The two syllables take more effort than a day’s worth of hauling, and Thomas sighs deeply after forcing his tongue and lips to move.

The man above him cups his face, rubbing his thumb against his cheek.

“No, Tommy, my heart,” Edward’s voice washes over him, shaking and broken; “It’s only me.”

The gulls are crying above. He can hear them.

He groans, turning his face into Edward’s hand. Edward gently nudges him to the edge of his cot and carefully lies down beside him, on top of the scratchy wool blanket. Thomas edges closer to him, and Edward helps him sit up enough so that he may slide his arm around Thomas’s shoulders and hug him tight.

Edward sniffles against his neck, his arms quaking. Moisture drips from his nose onto Thomas’s shirt. Thomas tries to crane his neck to look at Edward, but the movement takes strength he does not have.

He wants to reassure Edward, whisper comfort in his ears, but his tongue is heavy in his mouth.

_The gulls are crying. _

_Can you hear them, Ned? _

_There must be leads nearby if the birds are here. _

_Tell Captain Crozier —_

_Tell him that I —_

** **

Thomas sat at the table in the great cabin. Crozier’s dress coat was draped over his lap as he looped his thread and needle around two of the uppermost buttons, refastening them where they had loosened. A brief knock sounded at the entrance, despite the door being open, and Thomas looked up in time to see Lieutenant Little enter, his hat tucked under his elbow.

“Good morning, sir,” greeted Thomas, smiling easily. “Captain Crozier is below with Lieutenant Irving, in the store rooms.”

Little stood awkwardly at attention, his eyes resting on Thomas’s face for more than what was comfortable before they slid to the ground.

Thomas set the coat on the table so he could stand.

“Can I do anything for you, sir?”

“No, no, it’s nothing urgent. I can wait for him here.”

Thomas nodded, hesitating a second before folding Crozier’s coat and putting away his thread. In the presence of the serious and dreadfully handsome lieutenant, Thomas did not trust his hands to finish the job without pricking his fingers multiple times.

Once the coat was housed in its cupboard by Crozier’s bed, Thomas walked back to the main room to see Little standing at the stern’s windows, looking at the great expanse of dark sea behind them. Thomas paused for a second to run his eyes along the straight line of Little’s shoulders, the trim waist, and the curling edge of hair where it disappeared beneath the top of his collar.

Little glanced back in time to see Thomas staring, and Thomas startled, his face immediately reddening.

Thomas expected a rebuke, but Little’s voice was soft and melodious as it tiptoed across the room to Thomas.

“It’s Jopson, isn’t it? Your name?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas answered, straightening, willing his heart to stop beating so wildly in his chest.

“Captain Crozier mentioned that you have sailed on an Arctic expedition before?”

The gentle curiosity in Little’s voice propelled Thomas forward, and he stepped behind one of the chairs at the table, placing his hands on the wooden back as he, too, gazed out at the water behind the ship where the sun glinted cheerfully off the choppy surface.

“_Ant_arctic, yes,” he said, “with Sir Ross and Captain Crozier in ’39.”

“What was it like?”

Thomas thought for a moment.

“Stormy,” was the word he thought best described the wildness of those four years, traversing the Antarctic coastline and the scattered, isolated islands.

Little had a furrow in his brow but with also a smile that lifted one corner of his lip, giving the man a rather impressive look of perplexity. Thomas felt a smile of his own grow, and he was powerless to draw his eyes away from Little’s face.

“Both captains performed marvelously,” added Thomas. “Few men died on either ship.”

Little turned to face him completely, setting his hat on the table.

“Let us hope for an encore performance, then,” Little said, the smile widening briefly, hesitating, his hands twitching before dangling at his sides.

Footfalls thumped in the hallway to the cabin, and when Captain Crozier entered, his eyes lit on Little.

“Ah, Lieutenant Little, just the man I was looking for.”

Like a dance so familiar to Thomas that he could perform it with his eyes closed, he stepped back for Crozier to pass him and the table, and he continued moving toward the door, filling the space left absent by the captain.

“Pardon me, captain,” Thomas said, dipping his head before his eyes paused on Little, meeting and holding his gaze, “lieutenant.”

With his sewing kit held to his chest, Thomas rushed to his cabin, his thoughts already cataloguing the chores of the day, the one he anticipated most being the dinner in the wardroom where he could listen to that melodious baritone to his heart’s content while freshening the officers’ glasses with drink.

Afterward, as they rested in the great cabin, he would stand by the door, his hands clasped demurely before him. He would risk inconspicuous glances to the sharp profile of the lieutenant where he sat close to the stove, his eyes moving slowly back and forth across the pages of the book in his hand.

And should Little look up, perhaps to ponder the line he just read or to let his eyes rest from the strain of reading in dim lamplight, Thomas would not immediately drop his gaze.

** **

** **

Sarah Jopson died, bequeathing to Thomas a locket and her second shawl.

David Young left the echo of his watery screams, bouncing off the walls of the sick bay and fo’c’sle.

Billy Strong had no personal effects but an unusually large stash of tobacco.

John Hartnell died with nothing remaining but an altered and bereaved brother.

Thomas Evans had a small rosary and an extra shirt, given to Golding.

Tom Darlington had a knit purse, beaded with the designs of small waves and whales.

Stephen Stanley was remembered by the book he left partially open on his operating table, with the drawn portrait of his daughter and a letter folded over so many times that the words of his wife were faded.

Fred Hornsby had a well-read, heavily marked and dogeared book of poetry that Thomas stashed in his own cabin after he gave Hornsby’s tobacco to Mr. Lane.

Doctors Peddie and MacDonald left behind their books, their instruments, and, most despairingly of all, the care of countless men on the narrow shoulders of Mr. Goodsir.

Thomas remembered each of their names and the artifacts infused with each man’s character. One evening, as he lay down to sleep, he could not help but muse with morbid curiosity what his physical legacy would be, should he die an untimely death. He thought of his sewing needles and thread, the small tin of extra buttons, his mother’s locket, and — carefully hidden under his pillow or rolled up in canvas during the day — the small pile of notes, exchanged dangerously and excitingly between steward and lieutenant, the contents of which would bring a lurid blush to even the most hardened of sailors.

Rationale told him to burn the letters, but every time he retrieved the pile to gaze at the stilted poetry and the curling lines of Edward Little’s delicate words, Thomas found that he could not bring himself to destroy this part of himself, wanting nothing more than to hold onto this precious, tenuous infatuation for as long as he was able.

“How did she die?”

Thomas shrugged, awkward, from where he lay, curled against Edward’s chest.

“Too young,” he answered, “And undeservedly.”

Edward squeezed his shoulders, kissing his temple.

“Both of my parents are alive,” he said. “I can’t imagine losing either of them. It would be horrible.”

“Terrible,” Thomas agreed. He leaned up on his elbows, trailing his fingers along the bone of Edward’s sternum and tugging gently at the curls of hair on his chest. “There are few things worse than burying someone you thought you couldn’t live without.”

Edward frowned, thumbing his chin, pulling him close enough that they could kiss.

Thomas shuddered, the threat of tears nonexistent, the grief too deeply etched in his bones to feel overpowering any longer.

“It never goes away. The pain.” He kissed Edward again. “I hope you never have to experience it.”

** **

** **

** **

Thomas is sleeping when Little wipes the tears from his face, fixes his collar, and slides his arm out from under Thomas’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Little whispers, choking on the words. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t—”

He does not finish the sentence, and swiping a rough hand against his face, he leaves.

Thomas sleeps, while the sun blinks lazily overhead, and the gulls cry their redolent refrain.

** **

The young hunter paces the ground, hesitating at the edge of the old camp. The remains of tents are buried under fresh snowdrifts. Jagged pieces of wood pierce the snow near him, much like the appearance of an enormous claw, a bear ripping and digging itself free.

Ignoring the nauseating pitch in his stomach — the reproof he would suffer should his uncle learn that he deviated from his path, heading to this cursed place — he moves deeper into the ruins. He pokes at the ground, frowning as he uncovers strange artifacts that hold no meaning to him but are made of materials he finds useful and valuable. He picks at the battered, pronged pieces of metal; he runs his finger along the gleaming clasps of the dark _annuraat_; he holds up a crumbling bundle of fragile, thin sheets, their surfaces marred by symbols he does not understand.

He pauses when he steps on a portion of snow that bulges strangely. Thinking it may be one of the containers left behind by the dead men, he paws at the snow until cloth appears through the icy flakes.

His fingers brush against long, tangled black hair, and he recoils, falling back onto his haunches.

The wind picks up, spreading the loosened snow in a flurry, revealing another corner of a striped shirt, framing skeletal shoulders, and the back of a dark head of hair.

The wind whispers to the hunter that it is time to leave, so he hurriedly gathers the forks and the brass-buttoned coat before retreating back toward the coastline.

The papers — written in a neat, curling hand with words the hunter has never heard and sentiments he is too young to fully appreciate — he leaves, where they and the bones will bleach under the Arctic sun.


End file.
